Kroc
commented
5 years ago Building our own disk image now works, and Exomizer is used to compress the payload, but we still need a fast-loader to actually improve the transfer speed. I will likely reuse GMA's fast-loader from the original disk image (once I've finished reverse-engineering it)
Right now, we're dependent on the GMA86 loader with it's copy-protection and encryption. Before we can really get into changing the game we need to be able to construct our own single-file program, stripping out the GMA86 fast-loader / relocation / encryption code. This requires a massive re-ordering of the program's layout and will likely break a lot of code that hasn't been properly disassembled yet.
This is a separate issue from adding out own fast-loader, that can be done once we can build our own PRG files.
[x] Use segments for each block of code rather than includes. This is needed to be able to relocate pieces of the game differently from the original version and our versions
[x] Produce a new bootsrap / once-off initialisation code -- the loader currently handles calling a handful of routines to initialise the game and jump into the entry point. Once-off init code can live in $0400-$0700 as this area is wiped and used as scratch RAM by the game
[ ] Add a serial number to the disk; this can be written to an unused track / sector with a magic number, e.g. "0x1337CODE" and as a DEL line in the directory
[ ] Add a fastloader